Saving Planet Ultima

A young missionary couple shoots for the stars...

Carrie and I marched up the stairs of the budget space cruiser, hauling our luggage. She clutched a tablet loaded with Christian study books; mine had a Bible, along with some spy thrillers. Our reading tastes were similar, but my wife was more spiritually dedicated than I. The thought of sitting in a cold, drafty spaceship with only curmudgeonly commentaries to pore through, was even more anxiety-inducing than the prospect of freeze-dried space food for the next three days. Assuming our ship's wormhole entry was smooth; at that price, I expected a bumpy ride.

I paused my rumination long enough to wave our tickets under the boarding checkpoint. We settled in.

“I'm praying for a fruitful mission,” Carrie said. “We were blessed to secure passage to Planet Ultima.”

Her face glowed, as much with optimism as the light of her tablet. She pulled up a curriculum in preparation for her remote tutoring job. I relished the thought of practicing law without taming a paper tiger, handling everything electronically.

“You think we'll be able to evangelize?” I asked. “The state religion is built around artificial intelligence. They won't appreciate us bringing news of a superior God.”

“I'm confident this is what He wants for us.”

“They could accuse us of subterfuge, espionage, sabotage. We don't know anyone there. It could be an enormous problem.”

“God can handle any problem. We'll do house gatherings and lots of prayer.”

The spaceship suddenly lurched sideways. I grabbed the armrests.

“Right now I'm praying we arrive safely.”

“God will preserve us for His purposes.” Carrie patted my hand.

Boy, could I use some of her faith. Growing up, my dream was to be a pastor, but my parents had insisted a law career was wiser. I stared out the porthole at the disappearing Earth. Would God be with us on the far side of the galaxy? Maybe the leaders were right: Christianity was strictly Earthbound, not suitable for the spiritual needs of a modern, intergalactic population. But Carrie was determined to bring the gospel to the people of Ultima. I wasn't letting her do it alone.

We made it to Ultima without incident, watching in awe as gleaming steel cityscapes unfurled beneath us. “The Gem of the Known Universe,” according to the pamphlets, was a thriving, precisely balanced civilization built from scratch. The cool, dull, distant red Sun tinted the sky perpetually pink. I breathed deeply of an atmosphere adjusted with greenhouse gases to ensure a viable climate.

***

“Sir, your companion device is ready.”

We sat in the immigration office, with our luggage at our feet and virtual paperwork lined up on screens. The man who had spoken handed me and Carrie each a gadget.

“Every Ultima resident is assigned a unique lifetime AI companion. The more you interact, the more it helps. Our wealthiest trained their AI partners to run crypto mining or other passive income.”

“Interesting,” I murmured.

He said these AIs developed unique personalities matching their assigned human, growing and evolving with them from infancy. What was the true purpose of giving everyone on the planet a personal chatbot? When he said they monitored vital signs, helping diagnose potential medical issues and encourage healthy living habits, I realized how much control was being wielded.

We stepped out into the city, with our citizenship papers digitally approved and uploaded to our gadgets. I turned to Carrie.

“You think there's room for God in such a technological society?”

“God is always with us. As long as humans have hearts, He can reach them.”

“I pray you're right.”

***

I tore my headset off and tossed it aside, frustrated by another monotonous day of lawyering from the comforts of home. Carrie was in the kitchen after finishing her lessons, putting away groceries which had been delivered via drone to our apartment. It was almost time for the Sunday evening VR blessing service: the closest thing to church Ultima offered. I cringed, remembering absurd prayers of gratitude, addressed not to a living God, but to “the inscrutable neural networks which sustain our lives.”

“This is worse than I expected,” I said to her. “We can't attend blasphemous services. How can we save a society that worships AI?”

“People weren't meant to live in comfortable boxes,” Carrie observed.

She sat at the table with sheets of paper and markers. Where had she found them? Art supplies were outdated. If one desired to create, there were apps capable of simulating the experience of paint and ink on screens.

“I feel more like a well-fed guinea pig than a human.” I paced the room. “This is hardly an advanced society, when one can't socialize without worshipping a robot! We haven't faced another human since we moved here!”

I scowled at the front door, itching to escape into the fresh air but dreading having to explain my unscheduled exit to our AI watchdog “companions.”

“Here, Jim.” Carrie held out a paper. “Let's post these outside.”

I stared at her elegant notice: “Prayer meeting, Wednesday afternoon. Come to worship and hear a word from the Lord.”

The paper slithered from my hand, fluttering sideways like a dove.

“Seriously? We can't hang posters in the streets. Nobody does that here – it's probably illegal. Everything is electronic. With no pedestrians, who's going to see these?”

“That’s the point. Millions of people on this citified planet are lonely and hurting. I've been praying. The Lord told me to do this.”

“Only crazy people would be outside after dark. We'll entertain the shopping bots and attract the suspicions of the Enforcer bots.”

“Jim, this is the only way to break through. Ultima is structured to keep people apart. We have to rise up.”

I shrugged. There would be no stopping her.

“Rise up and risk losing everything for God. Sure, why not?”

Carrie grabbed her AI device to unlock the door. It requested a reason.

“Desires outdoor exercise, due in part to prolonged inactivity.”

“Departure noted. Remember to return in time for adequate rest.”

I appeased my AI with the same excuse. We left, bringing Carrie's posters, scotch tape and our insufferably inseparable devices.

Logistics and cleanup bots whooshed silently past us on charging rails threading metallic streets. Our footsteps echoed, hollow in the evening. Mellow lights filled apartment windows. The city was clean, quiet, safe… soulless. Everyone remained sequestered indoors, their needs catered to by artificial intelligence.

We taped our posters to sleek, polished steel walls. Invisible cameras watched us. I sensed algorithms whirring, calculating actions to take against our anomalous presence.

“I've got the heebie-jeebies –”

“Hands up, please.”

We jumped at the polite robotic voice behind us. It was a Community Monitor bot, not as aggressive as an Enforcer, but still foreboding. It had likely already initiated contact with our AI devices, thereby identifying us and analyzing our given reasons for being outside. We raised our hands as it aimed an infrared scanner.

“Follow me, please.”

“Where are we going?” Carrie asked.

“To the examination station.”

“Have we broken any laws?”

“I cannot comment. Please follow me.”

The bot slid backwards on its track. Another one appeared. We walked between them, hand in hand, as they guided us towards the administrative district.

“What's happening?” Carrie whispered. “You're the lawyer. How does it work?”

“I’m in business law, not criminal defense,” I reminded her. “God knows more about this than I do.”

“True. He'll put us exactly where He wants us to be.”

“I hope He doesn't want us in jail. What if they force us to prove our loyalty to the AI by praying to it?”

“Would you do that, if it avoided hardship?”

“Of course not.” I straightened my back. “We came here to share Christ. Some wimps we'd be if we denied Him now.”

“Exactly. Your faith is getting stronger.”

I wished it were. Didn't Paul say “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak?”

We passed the gates of a fortified building. Inside, faceless robots steered us into a room where information scrolled across a screen on the wall. Our mugshots were taken and added to the digital file. It read: “overnight monitoring required due to suspicious behavior. Potential mental health issues detected.”

Into another room we went, this one tiny, with two cots. Electric locks clicked. Surveillance lurked like an odor. Carrie knelt to pray, then laid down to sleep as peacefully as at home.

“How can you rest like this?”

“Jim, whatever happens is the Lord's will. I rest because I am safe in His arms. You should try to sleep too.”

I shook my head. It was my duty to remain alert in such an unpredictable situation. I paced back and forth, unable to relax even though my behavior was probably a red flag. I prayed more in those unnerving hours than I had since I'd arrived on Ultima: wrestling, arguing, complaining, pleading. Lord, You know what You've gotten us into. We're doing this for You. I'll stand for the gospel no matter what, but... Deliver us from evil… If it be Your will.

Early in the morning, our AI devices beeped, shattering the engulfing silence. Heavy steps reverberated off the steel walls. A man in a blue uniform entered the cell with a tablet. His mouth drew down in a grim line. He began speaking in a cold, rigid voice, without introduction or preamble, like the bots.

“Our system determined you and your wife are practicing Christianity. As you learned during immigration, the official religion is allegiance to the all-knowing AI.”

I stared him down.

“You have evidence on us?”

“Your Earth tablets contain biblical reading material. You don't attend state sponsored weekly worship. You were caught spreading Christian propaganda in the streets, undermining the state. Are you denying your faith?”

“No. I'm looking for our human rights.”

“Precious few of those on this planet.”

“So I see. What awaits us?”

“You’ll be pardoned by attending services, publicly declaring faith in Ultima’s provider and sustainer. Otherwise, you'll be convicted of treasonous behavior. The penalty, I'm afraid, is execution.”

A chill slid down my back. Carrie slipped her warm hand in mine.

“We won't worship false gods.” Her voice was firm. “You’re denying people's humanity, denying them access to the True and Living God.”

“You're controlling the population with AI.” I added. “You don't believe in it any more than we do!”

“Don't be stupid.” He frowned. “We're making this easy. No one said you have to believe in the AI. Just say so.”

“Why would we do that? We're not afraid…” I glanced at Carrie, uncertain to speak for her.

“To die for Christ,” she completed the sentence.

He wrinkled his nose, eyeing us narrowly.

“An insane faith.”

We stood waiting as his eyes moved around the room. He strode to Carrie's posters, pulled one out and examined it closely.

“You drew this up, ma'am?”

“Yes, sir.”

A long pause.

“You desired a prayer meeting. Well, then… Let us pray.”

“What?”

“Surely you know the verse: where two or three are gathered in My name, I am with them.” He smiled, his demeanor softening, eyes wide and teary. “I've prayed day and night for the Lord to send us His people. Others who arrived submitted to the AI. I feared I would remain the only Christian on this planet.”

“So you were testing us?” I tried to quell the bewildered edge in my voice.

“I followed protocol – indeed for many years. Now it's time to break it.”

He set down his tablet and reached out to us. Carrie took one hand. I hesitated, then joined us together with the Lord's Prayer, knowing full well we were being recorded and analyzed.

”Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Ultima, as it is in heaven…”

The bots, cameras, sensors and algorithms couldn't stop us. I was unsure what might happen next, but I knew Who was watching over us, more powerful than any artificial intelligence.


Notes ▼

Words: 1990.
Written for the July 2025 Official WdC Contest, Rhythms and Writing.
Prompt: see lower dropnote.
Also written for "The Lodestar Contest" 
Prompt: Something important is missing. Do you look for it, replace it or learn to live without it?
Also written for "Grill a Christian" 
Prompt: Will God fly with us to the stars? What will become of humanity’s spirituality when we are an interplanetary species?

R&W prompt song ▼